Get Your Copy As Lições Do PinguimUma História Real Formulated By Tom Michell Distributed As Bound Copy

admit the penguin on the cover was what first attracted my attention to this book but, having read the synopsis, I was intrigued to read more and Im so glad I did! It is a heart warming tale of how Juan Salvador Pingüino came to be rescued from an oil slick then travelled from Uruguay to a boarding school in Argentina where hes adopted by the staff and students alike.


The narrator for the story is the author, Tom Michell, and this is part recount, part story, part travelogue and entirely entrancing.
It is a brilliant, fun read, as the author shares his experiences and imagined conversations with Juan Salvado r.
Ill let you imagine some of the amazing, often hilarious, antics as a little penguin joins a boarding school then suggest that you go read the book yourself to find out just what happens.


This is a fun, light hearted read brilliant to chuckle along to!

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley, too, for letting me read an ARC of this book in exchange for this, an honest review.


For more of my reviews, please visit sitelink wordpress. com Who told this guy that this could be a book A blog post, maybe.
But a book There just isn't much substance here, "I learned about caring for people because of a penguin I adopted, But at the end I learned the penguin didn't care about me, it just wouldn't go back into the ocean by itself.
" The end. Marley amp Me with a penguin, Well, sort of. I dont know about you, but Im a bit peeved at how this has been roped in for Christmas advertising on Goodreads.
It would indeed make a good holiday gift for an animallover, but this emphasizes the twee aspects of what is otherwise a sweet if slight story about the author keeping a Magellanic penguin as a pet while he was teaching in an Argentina boarding school in thes.


Michell, from England, was in his twenties when he set off on his South American adventure.
During school holidays he traveled as far as he could get on a motorbike, and it was on one such break to Uruguay that he came across an awful oil spill on Punta del Este beach.
All he could see was dead penguins until he realized one was still alive, He named the little fellow Juan Salvador and smuggled him back into Argentina to live on his bedroom terrace and delight the schoolboys.
Before that, though, comes the uproarious process of cleaning the oilsodden bird, a feat achieved with a bidet, a string bag, and plenty of dish detergent.
PreGoogle days, you see. This was by far my favorite passage of the book,

Its touching to see Juan Salvado making friends at the school and helping an outcast named Diego Gonzales come out of his shell through swimming in the later parts of the book.
However, Im always hesitant about anthropomorphizing, which Michell does here when imagining the penguins replies in italics.
Plus the language can be a bit stiff I would have dated this to thes by the speech, and theres precious little evidence of the political upheaval in Argentina at the time the book is set.
All the same, stories of connection across species boundaries are always pleasant to read, and the whimsical illustrations are charming.
I initially selected this book for the quirkiness of the story a teacher residing in an Argentinean boarding school with his pet penguin but I soon become enthralled with the political backdrop.


Set in the mid's in the dying days of the final Peronist regime the book describes how soaring inflation impacted on the Argentinean people and tells in an understandable way, what happens when an economy overheats.
As a teacher, our narration had a roof over his head, no rent to pay,meals a day and a steady income.
Every thing else he wanted he got by means of a barter system he bought whatever few items were available in the shops and tried to swap them for what you actually wanted.
Goods could double in price from the time he picked them up to the time he got to the checkout.
There was no arguing if he didn't want them, well the next customer would, Eventually things came to a head and there was an army coup,

I couldn't help thinking that the authors had to be a bit insane to leave the safety of home in England to travel to Argentina at such a dangerous time, but he was an ardent adventurer.
During school vacations he explored South America, Whilst in Uruguay he can across a group of penguin washed up on the beach in an oil spill, found a single survivor and rescued him.
The author is passionate in his love of nature and his disgust at the impact humanity is having on this planet:

".
. . an enormous number of species the world over, including penguins, have suffered population declines of eighty or ninety per cent and are now considered endangered, while others have become extinct"

The relationship that developed between bird and man, and also between the bird and the school community at large,was astonishing.
There are many LOL moments as the reader can't help picturing this little penguin roaming the school grounds or rolling down a staircase.
The author has a love of animals and a belief that they understand more than most give them credit for I'm with him on that one!:

"One day, I believe, we will be able to confirm that many animals have the capacity to understand and process information and experience emotions to a far more sophisticated degree than opinion currently holds.
"

The story is very readable and totally convincing, both in terms of the human/bird interactions and the wider political and economy situation.
I'm very glad I read this one D This is a delightful account about a young man and

Juan Salvador, the penguin that he rescued who came to live with him for a time.
Tom Michell, a young Englishman, teaching at a boarding school in Argentina in thes, was enjoying the summer break in Paraguay when he came across the devastating site of hundreds of Magellan penguins covered in black, tarry oil, dead on the beach.
When he spotted a solitary penguin alive he didn't hesitate to pick it up and take it back to his holiday apartment where he tried to remove the oil.
What follows is the story of how he came to smuggle it back to Argentina and into the school, where it quickly became well loved by the staff and the boys and an important member of the school.
What a charming memoir, featuring the adventures of a young Englishman in Argentina and the penguin he rescued/kidnapped off a Uruguayan beach in an illadvised fit of conscience.
I was particularly amused by the way that he managed to improvise his way through customs back to Argentina with the bird in tow.
In our day of increased security, monkey shines like this are definitely a thing of the past.
Michell was reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull when he discovered his penguinJuan Salvador Gaviota in Spanish.
In an instant, the penguin acquires his name: Juan Salvador Penguino,

Far more adventurous that I ever was or will be, Mr, Michell takes a first job at a boys school in Argentina during a restless time in that lovely countrys history.
The monetary inflation inArgentina could double the prices of things in weeks, days, sometimes even hours.
My first visit to beautiful Argentina was inand the banks were often closed for exactly the same reason! While we were in Buenos Aires, those who needed local currency went down to the leathermerchant just a few doors down from our hotel.
He would look at your money, look in the air as if communing with the gods of commerce, and then offer you a sum of Argentine pesos.
I have no idea if we got a reasonable exchange rate, but that should be the least of ones worries when travelling.
If you are well enough off to do the travelling, you can take a small haircut on monetary conversions, I think.


I have also been out to the Magellenic penguin colony at Punta Tombo that Michell describes so vividly.
Nearly three decades later, there were ineffective barriers in place to keep tourists and penguins separate.
Despite them, there were people manhandling some of the birds and treating them more like amusements than like wild animals.
I was travelling with a small group, but entire cruise ships were disgorging vast crowds of people into the natural area.
I was far happier on the following day when our local guide took us to a smaller, more remote rookery where we were the only people present.


Being a lover of penguins all species, I could see myself falling completely in love with Juan Salvador just as many of the people from the boys school do.
J. S. becomes a dear friend and confidant to many of the staff and boys as well as Mr.
Michell.

Now I want to listen to tango!
A great book for picking up and putting down, as I did when I read it at breakfast during a recent trip to Iceland I'm not at my most sociable first thing in the morning!

This book is especially recommended if you need something lighter and more cheerful to alternate with recover from a more serious work.

This is an absolute gem of a book, It is the author's first book, although he is now in his midsixties, It is a sort of memoir of a time in his youth, in thes, when he taught at an elite boarding school in Argentina.
An Englishman, he noted that others of his ancestors had worked in farflung parts of the British Empire in its glory days, but none had lived in South America.
From an early age, he felt a strong pull from that continent and began to learn Spanish, on his own, to prepare for a visit there.
While in his early twenties, he saw an ad seeking a teacher at a prep school in Argentina and applied.
Thus employed, he began his great adventurejust the sort of adventure one hopes to have when he is young and fresh.
The job was ideal because, on his long breaks between terms, he could travel extensively in South America.
On one such jaunt, to Uruguay, and on his last day of vacation there, he unexpectedly encountered a grim scene as he walked along a beach: vast quantities of dead penguins, killed by oil in the wateroil legally released from oil transport ships in those days as they flushed out their tanks.
It was heartrending and put a depressive edge to his last day of holiday, But then he noticed a flicker of movement, and drawing closer, saw that one bird was still alive.
The heart and soul of this book, and really his reason for writing this memoir, is to tell of his friendship with that bird, a Magellan penguin he named Juan Salvado changed from 'Juan Salvador', John the Savior, to 'Juan Salvado', John the Saved.
Here is a man in his sixties, looking back forty years and remembering with great clarity this beautiful friendship.
Really, this book will steal your heart, It has it all: a bit of modern Argentine history, an introduction to the geography of the tip of South America and the people who live there, a bit of economics, environmentalism, and , above all, some fascinating facts about penguins.
The book also includes a helpful map of South America and some charming illustrations, The epilogue is beautifully written and brought me to tears, I loved this book!
If you'd like, you may read an excerpt here:
sitelink co. uke
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